YOU changed my theme without my knowledge

Why has my site theme been changed? I had a picture of a city street on the top. Today when I looked at my blog, it has this horrible new green corraline theme on it. Do you always randomly change people's themes? It's horrible. I changed it immediately to a plain blue theme, because I can't find my old theme. Where is my old theme? And do I have to check this every day to see if you're changing the theme on me???????

Yes, mine theme was changed too, from Cutline to Coraline. Although my other site was untouched. I noticed a half dozen tweets about it today. I thought I'd been hacked, but it seems to have come from WordPress.com. Ironically, this is what's posted on the WordPress support page: "Support is currently closed as staff meet offsite brainstorming ways to make things better. We will be dropping into the forums regularly during the hiatus, and we’ll formally reopen on August 16th."

FYI, if you had a bunch of Widgets, you might find some of them saved at the bottom of the widget section.

Just wondering if WP might change policy and offer a bit of advance notice next time they switch out themes. Since I have a beloved older theme without lots of bells and whistles, I now have this vague, creeping dread that I will wake up one day and it will be "new and improved" -- kind of like waking up and you're married to someone similar, yet different. A heads-up would make for happier bloggers, doncha think?

This was terribly handled by WP. It took me by complete surprise and I've spent far too long this morning cleaning up the mess... a bit of notice and some clear instructions beyond forum posts buried deep in the haystack would be nice

I am really upset by this change. It is very unprofessional and was handled badly. I now have to spend the rest of my evening trying to fix things. The reason I changed to WordPress was to avoid these kinds of messes. We deserve an apology.

I in the same boat as you all and very upset. I still can't find my widgets or restore as it was yesterday. If WP had to wipe out our theme, couldn't they at least leave the widgets & links intact! Recent Comments are gone and there's nothing to click which brings you to the last comment. I don't know that I have time, mood or know how to bring it all back! WP used to be so great with good support.

My widgets are also gone. The "inactive widgets" have nothing in them! The image widgets and text widgets are empty. Nothing shows up now. Damn...I just switched to Cutline about a month ago. Should have stayed with Koi.

I go to my blog this evening and lo and behold, all the widgets and buttons I spent time getting just right have disappeared. There's nothing in my Inactive Widgets either. My blog looks like someone threw up on it. Are you kidding me? What a total dick move on WP's part. Same goes for the forced Coraline transition. The Neil Gaiman reference just makes it worse. (Would it have been that hard to email everyone who uses the Cutline theme saying the transition's coming? You've got everyone's email address, don't you?) Please fix this. Now.

Hi, everybody. We're sorry if you've experienced any interruptions with your blog layout. Custom CSS users were notified in advance that Cutline would be replaced with Coraline and we've been working with them since that announcement to make sure the transition between themes is as smooth as possible.

If any Sidebar Widgets disappeared after the theme switch they should be available at Appearance → Widgets in the Inactive Widgets pane. If they're not, or if you need help setting up any of your widgets again, let us know and we'll do what we can to help you out.

@theresahenigeoland We won't be able to switch your blog back to Cutline. It's been phased out, replaced with Coraline, and will no longer be available on WordPress.com.

@niwotcentral There are no plans to replace Chaotic Soul.

@maryannwilliams The Recent Comments widget is still available from Appearance → Widgets.

I am just home from vacation and realizing that my good-looking Cutline theme has vanished and is replaced with Coraline. I don't like my subhead in the title, dislike the overall look and am disappointed. Like others, I'd like to see Cutline restored.

@mrstillotson
The Twenty Ten theme is still available. If you have questions to ask about Twenty Ten or Coraline specfic to issues you have on your wordpress.com blog then please post them, so Volunteers and Staff who are monitoring the forum can help you.

Support is currently closed as staff meet offsite brainstorming ways to make things better. We will be dropping into the forums regularly during the hiatus, and we’ll formally reopen on August 16th. http://en.support.wordpress.com/contact/

@ludusnaturae: But the GPL affair was about Thesis, not Cutline. The dispute over Thesis doesn't justify removing Cutline (just because it was originally designed by the same designer), and doesn't justify removing it without warning.

I'm in hearty agreement, flynnsblogs. I liked Coraline, gave it a try when it was first available, not sure why I switched off to Pressrow, but I know I had a reason...anyway, I saw the warnings that the changes were coming and just changed over to Twenty Ten in time to prevent any kind of disaster.

I find that my current choice is actually the best one to meet my needs that I've tried thus far... But like niwotcentral said, "I now have this vague, creeping dread that I will wake up one day and it will be 'new and improved'..." I kinda wonder about that too. Hope it never happens!

I've been here for just 15 minutes, seeing if WP is what I would like in a blog. I'm not so happy...

I tried to find a list of "over 100 themes" , but the link keeps putting me here...http://en.wordpress.com/features/
...where it states "dozens", shows 5 and links to NONE.

So, I thought I would have to get a log on to enter some secret information sanctum. Still can't find it. Then I thought I had to start a blog. Still can't find it, but I did find this forum.

And thanks to all that have posted here, I have decided that after all of my hard work to get a blog looking perfect, and WP will just randomly change it - YIKES!! - I can't see any reason to use it. ...and I STILL can't find the themes.

It's just too much work just to see if I like it, I can't imagine what it must be like to use it.

I have no reason to stay for another moment.
Good luck to those that like it.